As purchased in 1986 for $450.00 dollars. It ran (barely) and was in primer...This
picture was taken after the engine was removed for rebuilding. When I located the
original owners warranty card, imagine our surprise when we realized that the original
owners Dad was friends with my Grandmother...even
though the car was first sold 1000 miles away and 15 years earlier!!!!

As it is now. The restoration was mostly completed in 1989 (keep in mind I was a teenager when restoring this car and it took several more
years to locate a good grill). Under the primer was evidence that the gsx paint package had been applied at some point and I decided to go that route. The car is a blast to drive, very comfortable,
and lots of power! Also unusual and gets it fair share of attention (which isn't
always a good thing).

I am currently building up an engine for this car
as the stock one is getting a little tired. Won't be anything too crazy, 9.5 to
1, stock bottom end, Stage 1 heads, stock manifolds and exhaust. I will be using
a TA Performance 288-94H cam. I am waiting for the heads to be completed, then
will be assembling the engine. I hope to have it in the car for late summer.

Engine is in and works well.Has some serious torque, not likely
I will get it onto a chassis dyno this year (everything went totally haywire as usual
when you plan something!), but stay tuned....here is a pic of the engine installed.
Its been 12 years since the car was restored so please excuse the mess!

First install of this engine had a cam bearing failure.
I ended up making my own cam
bearing tool because part of the reason
for the problem was the machine shop didn't install the front bearing deep enough,
despite my instructions. I have new back grooved bearings in the engine this time
around. Also found out lots of Buick cams are now ground slightly oversize which
can only hurt oil flow, not sure why they do that (probably just that the blanks
come like that). Make sure to get your cam measured and have the bearings checked
for proper clearance, you don't want to do this twice, trust me!

After years of messing around with a alpine cassette
player, I bought and installed a sony cd receiver with wireless remote, upgraded
my speakers and did a front
dash speaker modification. I was surprised
how inexpensive the stereo equipment is today, and the sound is a hundred times better
than it was. Now if the snow would just go away!

Update Oct 29, 2001

I'm happy to say I have found an excellent machine
shop, and although my little street motors are a laugh compared to some of the stuff
he builds, its good to have some talent behind the machining for the next few buildups
that may be coming. The shop also has an engine dyno, and the current engine (at
the flywheel) made 422HP @4986RPM, and a very noticeable on the street 500+ ft/lbs
of torque from 2500 RPM all the way past 5000RPM....modest numbers compared to some,
but not bad for full cast iron (including exhaust manifolds), factory Q-jet, no tuning and a mild cam that can barely be heard at idle. Still has plenty of
punch and yet very nice to drive (quiet too).

Last updated Dec 12, 2002

Not much new this year, didn't make it to any shows but did drive
the car a fair bit and had a lot of fun.The
torque always amazes me, doing second gear chirps at 1/4 throttle beside cops really
isn't a great thing to do!! :-)

Last updated Oct 29, 2003

Not much new so thought I would throw some detail pictures out there. Even the pictures are from two years ago!! Please remember that this car was painted in 1989 and orange peel was a fact of life. Its probably much closer to original than the sanded perfectly smooth base/clear that everyone uses now anyway. It seems the standards for everything have gone way up, even on old cars. Also, I had to resize the pictures so save some space...the only editing that was done was to make the licence plate illegible.

1971 was the only year to have these scoop inserts made of plastic, matching the style of the grille. 70 and 72 had metal inserts.

I wish Buick had not gone with the separate pot metal quarter extensions. They can be a pain trying to get them to align nicely. There is no gasket between them and the quarter (although some of the early 70 cars had gaskets I have heard) so they need to fit perfectly. If you paint them seperate you risk chipping them going back on, if you paint car with them on you get some parts of the crack that fill up and other parts where it does not. You can also see in the lower forward edge where it meets the quarter there is a gap. GM plugged that with a dollap of sealant, but that looks worse than just leaving it. GM painted them on the car, but they used a light coat of paint and there is no coverage underneath. There are also several styles of integration into the quarter panel/bumper area as well, some leave bigger gaps than others. No gaskets on the spoiler either.

May 24, 2005

Some more tidbits for the 71 guys. In 1971, Buick built a total of 8268 GS coupes. 5986 were 350 powered cars, 1481 were GS 455 cars, and 801 were GS 455 Stage 1 cars like mine. Of these, 383 GS coupes were sold new in Canada and mine was one of them, first sold in Thompson Manitoba at Mystery Lake Motors Ltd.

Of all the 1971 GS coupes, here is a sample of some of the options available:

NUMBER PRODUCED

OPTION

PERCENTAGE

SALES CODE

OPTION CODE

5670

Air Conditioning

69%

I6

C60

2523

Chrome Plated Rallye Wheels

31%

V2

PO5

1938

Rallye Steering Wheel

23%

X2

N31

1909

Firm Ride Rallye Suspension

23%

H6

F41

1832

Through Bumper Exhaust

22%

E6

N25

1634

Tilt Steering Column

20%

S7

N33

1546

Super Sport Wheels

19%

V7

PA6

1412

Tach and Gauges

17%

U7

WB8

1383

Clock and Gauges

17%

U9

WB7

1167

Positraction

14%

G4

G80

862

Power Windows

10%

R1

A31

307

Cruise Control

4%

S6

K30

274

Electric Door Locks

3%

T2

AU3

144

Rear Spoiler

2%

46

WA6

124

GSX package

1%

45

WA5

56

Front Spoiler

1%

47

WA7

Interesting that 69% of GS coupes had air conditioning! Buick really was the luxury musclecar division. I also thought it was interesting that almost as many cars were ordered with the clock/gauges compared to the tach/gauges. Keep in mind many option packages were available and combined some of the above items into them.

And how the GS coupe paint colors break down:

NUMBER PRODUCED

COLOR

SALES CODE

DATA PLATE CODE

1453

Cortez Gold

Q

53

1214

Bittersweet Mist

T

62

871

Lime Mist

H

43

855

Burnished Cinnamon

U

67

710

Stratomist Blue

B

26

552

Fire Red

R

75

514

Verdemist Green

M

49

377

Platinum Mist

P

13

360

Sandpiper Beige

W

61

311

Arctic White

C

11

237

Rosewood

N

78

203

Willowmist Green

K

42

190

Silver Fern

Z

41

181

Regal Black

A

19

153

Cascade Blue

D

24

31

Nocturne Blue

E

29

13

Cornet Gold

G

55

10

Vintage Red

X

74

7

Bamboo Cream

Y

50

7

Deep Chestnut

J

68

6

Tealmist Grey

L

16

5

Special Order Color

-

S.C.O.

3

Twilight Turquise

I

39

2

Copper Mist

S

65

2

Pearl Beige

F

70

1

Sunset Mist

V

73

NUMBER PRODUCED

VINYL ROOF COLOR

SALES CODE

DATA PLATE CODE

2835

Black

2

B

1120

White

1

A

1035

Dark Brown

8

F

716

Sandalwood

5

E

693

Dark Green

9

G

Look at all those colors! 26 available colors plus special order if there was one you just HAD to have. Compare that to todays vehicles which often only have 5 or 6 colors available, with one or two interior colors. Sorry no breakdown for the big block vs small block cars.

Note that 6399 of the 8268 GS coupes had a vinyl roof...that is 77% of production!!!

Interior colors were the same as vinyl roof (black, white, sandalwood, saddle and green) but the combinations of bench, notchback bench and bucket seats gets complicated so we'll leave it at the 5 colors. 20% were bench, 29% were notchback bench, and the remaining 51% were bucket seat cars.

I'd love to know where that Sunset Mist GS is.....

Last updated March 5, 2006

Just a couple pictures, summer of 2008. Please keep in mind paint is now 20 years old. Always a riot to drive!

August 25, 2008

*The insurance industry had set the standard for "dangerous" cars to be 1 hp for every 10lbs of weight so to get by, many (if not all) the manufacturers under rated the engines to keep the insurance premiums down (the insurance would often cost as much per year as the car on some models!!). Stock road test of the day produced a 13.4 quarter mile time in a 3900 pound car, you do the math (a ringer ?).

**I plan on someday doing a full frame off restoration of this car right back to original factory specs.